Review of Economic Studies Vol. 91 No. 2 2024
Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of U.S.-Born Students
Abstract
We study the effect of exposure to immigrants on the educational outcomes of U.S.-born students, using a unique dataset combining population-level birth and school records from Florida. This research question is complicated by the substantial school selection of U.S.-born students, especially among White and comparatively affluent students, in response to the presence of immigrant students in the school. We propose a new identification strategy, comparing sibling outcomes with the inclusion of family fixed effects, to partial out the unobserved non-random selection of native-born families into schools. We find that the presence of immigrant students has a positive effect on the academic achievement of U.S.-born students, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Moreover, the presence of immigrants does not negatively affect the performance of affluent U.S.-born students, who typically show a higher academic achievement compared to immigrant students. We provide suggestive evidence on potential channels.
- DOI
- 10.1093/restud/rdad047
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 972-1006
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex